


the council

by arabellagaleotti



Series: council of the future [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 90's, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BAMF Tony Stark, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Competency, Drug Use, F/M, Genius Tony Stark, High School, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Kid Tony, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, MIT Era, Maria Stark's Bad Parenting, Origin Story, Past Tony Stark/Tiberius Stone, Personal Favorite, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Iron Man 1, Recreational Drug Use, Smut, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, only a little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Five teenagers, millions of dollars, zero functioning parents and no responsibility.What could go wrong?This. This is what could go wrong.Introducing my old fic (the council of the future) edited and cleaned up.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Tony Stark, Howard Stark/Maria Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Lex Luthor & Tony Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Sunset Bain & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Everyone, Tony Stark & Tiberius Stone, Whitney Frost & Tony Stark, Whitney Frost/Tony Stark
Series: council of the future [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653553
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey, guys! 
> 
> so for those joining me again, hello! sorry, it took me a while. my base calculations of a few weeks were wayyy off. 
> 
> for anyone new joining me, also hello! you can find my old work in this series if you'd like to read it, not a necessity, but it's there. 
> 
> i planned to form a more coherent story line, remove certain character/s, make it a bit more angsty. i hope i've done that, i certainly tried. 
> 
> here's the new version!

  
  


Fourteen was a different age. A simpler age. 

Back then, things were different. Sunset Bain, their resident femme fatale still smiled like she meant it. Ty liked comic books and wore glasses. Whitney Frost, their socalite barbie-doll didn't put on a mask every morning with her makeup and Lex Luthor wasn't as close to a bureaucratic zombie as you can be while still technically alive. Tony...he’s a little more reserved, a bit more sarcastic, but even more eager, ironically enough. 

Now, Ty’s spending all his time at parties, spending all his daddy’s money. Tony’s at MIT, has a new friend and all he does is work on this new robot or weapons for Obie. Sunset’s practically running her father’s tech company down in Texas. Whit flits around the country to attend gala after gala; benefit after benefit. It doesn’t benefit her. 

They used to be together at those galas, tugged along by their philanthropic mothers. Power is hereditary, people don’t realise that. They are destined by their last names and their connections. They already know who they will be.

And so, ‘The Council of the Future’ came into existence. Yeah, Tony was a poetic little shit. 

Over time, the idea faded. They are no longer dragged along to every function, just as they are no longer innocent children, happy with life and unaware of what their names — and bank accounts — bring. 

Tony’s been kidnapped three times in the last year, Ty’s had four girls claim to be pregnant with his child, Sunset's ostracised at her school, and Whitney gets sneered at every time she opens her mouth. It’s changed them, it really has. Trauma is not exclusive to poor underdogs. Not everyone is Steve Rogers, after all. 

Tony contacted everyone through various means, and it’s just enough of a surprise for everyone to fly in to Malibu, where Ty already is and Tony is spending the holidays with an empty mansion.

He sends them the address of a parking lot a few miles from the city, right next to the sea.

Ty rocks up first on a shining chrome motorcycle and leather jacket, forgo the helmet. He has the scowl of a hangover, like he’s just woken up (even though it’s five pm), and there’s a dusting of white under his nose. He stays on the bike, ready to leave, as the others assemble. Ty always was flighty. 

Sunset steps out of the red Lamborghini she got for her last birthday, heels high and smile higher. She's all red, heels, nails, hair. Nothing better than a good aesthetic, Tony thinks wryly, leaning against the wooden railing. 

Lex comes in a chauffeured black limo that pulls away smoothly as he gets out. He's wearing a tailored suit, dark eyes flitting over the two already assembled. He looks like his father, in that suit, with the car. 

Whitney arrives in a cute retro corvette convertible, her dark hair down around her shoulders and looking deceptively innocent in a little sundress, all wide eyed and flawless like a doe. She nods at Sunset and ignores Ty. 

Tony himself is wearing a pair of jeans and a band t-shirt, always the ultra-causal one, always the one who forgets he’s meant to be cool. The car he gets out of is non-descriptive, an Audi with blacked-out windows, it drives over to the opposite side of the lot, parking smoothly. Whitney smiles at him. Ty tries not to look his way and fails.

And so, they assemble, it’s not between waiters dodging guests or the back room of someone's gala, but it feels the same, like they are tucked away from the world for a few moments.

Sunset and Whitney are leaning on their cars, next to each other in the desolate Malibu parking lot, overlooking the late-afternoon sea. Ty’s still sitting on his bike, pulled up next to Sun’s.

“Glad you got up for us, Ty-Ty,” Tony lilts, noticing the bags under his eyes and his muse, rolled-out-of-bed-(literally)-hair.

“Man,” he groans in response, “last night was wild.”

“Were there many doughnuts?” Sunset pokes, eyebrows raised and eyeing the smudge of white powder under his nose.

He wipes it hastily; sniffing. Whitney laughs, “oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

The group titters. This is how they talk, in jibes and jabs. It’s been so long and this, this is how they show they care, how they show they missed each other. Not normal, but is that expected?

“Lex,” Sunset drawls in her southern accent, “you really should look into something...that’s not a suit. It makes you look old, dear.”

“And you shouldn’t play matchy-matchy with a paint job,” he snarls back. Sunset wiggles her fingers like she’s hurt.

“Girls,” Tony interrupts, sitting on the bonnet of Whitney’s Corvette, there has always been that strange, adolescence closeness there, a promise of what to be. “No need to fight.”

“Piss off, Stark,” Lex says, the same time as Sunset rolls her eyes so hard they nearly pop out of their sockets.

“Hmm, yeah, well, we’re here for a reason, ladies and gentlemen. And it’s not to squabble.”

“You’re the one that called the meeting, Tony,” Ty says, helmet under his arm. “Why don’t you share?”

“Ty, a wonderful idea. Applause, everybody,” he starts to clap, but is cut off by Sunset, who growls out, “we’re not ten and bored at charity functions, Stark. Why are we here?”

“Wonderful point, Sunny. As she brought up, we are not ten. This alliance has little use anymore, with everyone scattered across the country.”

“The point is, we’re rarely in the same place at the same time, much less terrorising galas.”

“You can do that on your own,” Ty snorts.

Tony glares darkly at him and continues,“So, I’ve called the Council of the Future—“

“We’re still calling it that?” Lex interrupts, looking confused.

“We can have another meeting for the name later!” Tony snaps, “now stop interrupting me!” Tony looks around, and everyone quiets down. “We’re here to revive it. We need it, don't lie. I haven't spoken to someone my age since that Justin prick came up to me a month ago."

“Is there an opening to leave?” Sunset asks lazily, raising her eyebrows.

“You didn't even need to show up today,” Tony tells her. 

Sunset sniffs and mutters something rude. She's all front, all bark, no bite. 

"We done?" Ty asks, slinging a leg over his bike. Tony thinks he looks vaguely like something that should be in a superhero film. 

"Yeah," Tony says. "I guess we are."

"Good to see you, Tony," Ty says.

"You too, Ty," and he smiles. He really smiles.  Tiberius slips the helmet over his head and guns the bike, roaring out of the parking lot.

Whitney unlocks her corvette with a beep, getting inside. “Need a ride?” She asks the others with a smile, this one not-so-fake.

“Yeah, Sure, Whit.” She flips her hair over her shoulders and slides on her sunglasses, climbing into the car

“Lex! You want a ride?” Whit yells at a socially acceptable volume. He shakes his head and gets out a phone to call his car back, undoubtedly.

“You getting in?” she asks Tony, raising eyebrows behind her sunnies. 

He grins and slides into the leather passenger seat. Whit turns out of the lot. The black car Tony arrived in flashes its headlights, engine turning on. Tony flips them off and laughs, yelling at Whitney to go faster. 

He tells her to slip onto a side road, one that branches out to get to a hiking trail, or something. 

“That's John. Some dude dad hired to drive me around, make sure I don't get into any trouble.” he tells her, looking behind them to make sure they were not found. 

“Is it working?” she asks, knowing the answer.

“Whit, we just sped away, me flipping him off. Do you think it’s working?”

She laughs. Tony's the most ridiculous person she’s ever met. 

“Alright. We’re safe now, you can get back on the road."

“Put a seat-belt on, you,” Whitney pokes Tony in the side, once they’re on a paved road. He grumbled in annoyance, but clicks it in all the same.

They cruise down a lane next to the sea, wind ruffling their hair and golden hour light streaming down from the heavens, the sun's last hurrah before night. Tony leans back his head and closes his eyes. Whitney taps her fingers on the steering wheel to the song on the radio.

“You still at the Stark ancestral home?” She asks.

“Not anymore” Tony laughs, fake-leering at her.

Whitney laughs lightly. “Tony, honey, you ain’t got a chance with me.”

“Don’t I?” he leans in close, and she has to fight to keep her eyes on the road. 

“Sure, baby. But if I’m gonna do anything with you, it’s gonna be as sweethearts or with a gold ring.”

“I can give you that,” and he sounds like he really thinks he can. 

“Tony,” she says pityingly, “you couldn’t give a girl a golden ring if you tried.” This time, there is none of the suggestive teasing.

“Why not?” He says, sounding put out. 

“Family history,” she says simply, eyes on the road.

Tony stiffens. “Family history? Fuck you, Whitney.”

“It’s true,” she says, “you’ll never be able to settle down. It’s just like that, sometimes.” She shrugs like it can't be helped, gives a little sigh, but it only infuriates Tony further.

He leans across the seat, deadly close. Tony Stark is a shark when he wants to be, raised in blood and taught to be ruthless, he can smell blood from a passive-aggressive comment away. It's sink or swim for him, in the business world, and damn if he isn't gonna swim.

“And it’s not like that for you? Little miss perfect. You hate it, why won’t you admit it? You only do it because you know if you stop, no one will ever marry you. Your father's company is in shambles, and your mother is just as drunk as  _ my _ father, so don't talk.”

“Get out,” she bites, slamming on the brakes and screeching to the side of the coastal road. “Get out.”

“At least I have a future, Whitney,” he continues scathingly, “at least I’m not gonna become some housewife and live in purgatory for the rest of my life.”

“Get out!” she yells, “get the fuck out of my car!”

He gets out, throwing himself out of the seat and slamming the door after him. He leans on the rolled-down window, both hands in white-knuckled grip. “You know it’s true, Whit. Don’t deny it, you know it is and that’s why you’re reacting like this.”

Whitney doesn't say anything, just pushes down on the gas and speeds away, leaving Tony next to the road.

She’s gone and he collapses in the fading light from the sun. These are his best fucking friends in the world, (except maybe this new kid, Rhodey, that he’s been getting to know) and he hasn’t seen them all in two years, and he's fucked it all up yet again.

So he sits there, and looks at the sun, then sticks out a thumb to hitchhike back to the house nobody lives in but his father bought as a home.


	2. Chapter 2

"Tony," she says, catching him outside his favourite diner in New York a few weeks later. He freezes, violet sunglasses (where the hell did he get those?) halfway down his nose, sending watery purple shadows down his cheeks like tears. It’s such a Tony thing to wear. Such an outlandish thing. Such a thing the newspaper would comment on. 

"Whitney," he says back, voice even and unbreakable.

"I...I know we didn't really —" she stutters, unsure how to say anything. Tony is a force, and when he is happy it's amazing, warmth, and magnetism drawing you into his path like a celestial body, a gravitational force that you cannot help but get pulled into. 

"Make up?" he supplies, and his cool tone is almost friendly, but it lacks... something, that something that makes it Tony. This is only a shell, something not even the people he hates is given.

"Do you wanna — do...something?" she was going to ask the movies, a normal, date type thing.

"Like what?"

At least that's not a blatant dismissal. "The movies?"

"That's...awfully civilian." If it was said in the last tone, it would have made Whitney turn tail and run, but now it has just the start of the Tony she knows best, kind of gleeful, the kind that wears outlandish thing, the kind that attracts paparazzi.

"Sue me, I feel like being normal sometimes," she shrugs.

"Wanna buy me dinner first?" he jerks his head at the doors and Whitney blushes.

"Well, sure."

He smiles, that press smile, learned from his mother and not his father, and Whitney at least preens at that. It's not  _ really _ Tony, but it's good enough, for now.

Later, after the movie, the sky is streaked with the most fantastic sunset, all pink and purple, like God spilled a bucket of paint. It's practically holy, divinity in a few fleeting moments. They stand outside the diner on the cracked pavement and try to pretend they don't know what is about to happen.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and it's only sad because the end is already there, standing and staring, tapping a clock on it's wrist. There is no honeymoon period, no happiness, no giddiness, just flat time, energy sapped just by looking down the long road. This is bound to end, and they both know it. Whether it ends badly is anyone's guess.

Tony closes his eyes and tries to convince himself that this is a good idea.

He's never been good at following advice, not even his own.

He leans forward and so does she. They are locked in a standstill, the quivering moment before their lips touch is strung out like a taut line, each breath warm and suspended between their mouths. Inhaling each other with every breath, Whitney dares to romanticise them. She shouldn’t. They are the moment before a plane falls out of the sky, the moment before a rollercoaster, and all they can hear is the hydraulics hissing. 

Then the moment is broken and their lips are on each other's.

It's a good kiss, but it's nothing like what they used to describe in the romance novels he used to steal from his mama's bedside table.

He didn't really expect anything else, although he is tired of feeling nothing.

He still can't convince himself to stop trying.

\--

He and Whitney go to that movie, and Tony supposes it's a date, but he just...doesn't care. Even when he drops her off and she looks up at him with those blue, blue eyes and says, "I had a lot of fun with you tonight, Tony."

Tony figures this is the spot in the movies where he kisses the girl goodnight. So, for once in his life, he plays along and kisses her soft and slow and gentle outside her door. And when she pulls back at the end, flushed and pink, with sparkling, joyful eyes, he figures he's done something right, for once.

He almost feels like ringing his old man to tell him. He can imagine how that would go:  _ hey, dad, I know I haven't talked to you since you called me a failure and a pansy, slapped me around in a drunken stupor then left, but I just wanted to tell you I've fulfilled all your hetero-normative dreams. Proud? _

_ —  _

Whitney asks him out officially the week after. He takes Whit to the beach, but not just any beach. No, it’s this little thing a few miles from Miami (11.5), with nothing around it. It’s beautiful, though, a little curved beach, cliff on one side, sandy ramp built in god knows how long ago on the other. 

They stand on a bluff, looking down at the blue, blue Miami sea that stretches out and out and out, only a few black-dot fishing boats disrupting the flat line of the horizon.

“I think this might be the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Whit tells him. Whispering, but he can still hear her. There’s no wind, the air is dead up here. “We’ve been to a thousand places. Places revered for beauty, but this is it.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and he's never agreed with anyone more.

  
  
  


Later, when they’re swimming, splashing like children, Whitney feels like one of those faceless ten-year-olds again, running in one shrieking herd down to the ocean waves, reeling up back to their parents like a horde of seagulls. They get in a water fight, and even though Tony’s eyes burn and there’s salt in his mouth, he still laughs and sinks underwater to surprise attack her.

They get tired after a few hours, and haul themselves up the beach to lay on the dunes and let the last of the sun burn their bones. Tony feels a kind of calm foreign to him. He’s entirely unconcerned, with Whit next to him and the sky over him and the sea in front of him, he is safe and tired, a kind of comfortable weariness in his bones.

The sun goes down, and the dunes get cold so they climb back up the hill and get in the car. 

Tony turns the radio all the way up and presses the petal down, speeding face and faster down the practically-empty highway.

When they finish the sun is close to the horizon and a dusky, ember-colored sunset is spreading over the sky softly.

Tony kisses Whit again, this time like a summer's day, lazy and sweet and with all the intensity of a hot sun.

He likes Whitney, he tells himself, chants it inside his head until it’s all he can hear, until the words are echoing around his brain, thronging behind his eyes and he breathes them out like wispy smoke every time he releases a breath.

_ He likes Whitney _ .

—


	3. Chapter 3

“I'm behind on money,” Sunset complains at the next meeting, tired and angry that she has to fight like this. “The company’s still gonna go down. I don't know what to do."

You see, Sunset’s father is a weak-minded little rat of a man. God knows how he kept the company going all this time after her grandfather started it. 

Tony thinks of the weapon’s drone he’s just finished for next year’s line. It’s not in line with Bain Industries normal tech products, but with some easy modifications, you could sell it to the general population. 

\--

Funnily enough, a few months later, Bain Technologies puts out a new drone. A new drone that boosts their stock and lines their pockets. 

The rest of the world — well, the people that are gossipy or well-connected enough to know — think that Sunset Bain stole designs. When he hears about the rumour, he realises he sometimes forgets that people don't know about the council. 

Sunset toasts him at the next gala, from across the room, with everybody watching them, just like they've been watched their whole lives, and he laughs.

\--

  
  


Nick Fury goes to see Tony Stark.

“So,” he starts, “I hear Sunset Bain stole drone designs.”

“Aha,” Tony says, not surprised in the least at a strange man appearing in the hallway outside his dorm room. “I'm gonna go government agent, am I right?" Fury doesn't exactly says yes, but he don't say no. "I'm soo right. Ooh, now, I'm gonna say you're American, you got that vibe: y'know, self-important."

"I'm interested in what you're saying about your country," Fury says. 

Tony groans, "Don't pull out that patriotism act on me."

Fury ignores him; "Let's talk somewhere private."

Tony unlocks his dorm.

“So,” he says as soon as he is inside, watching Tony flop down at his desk. “Tell me the story.”

“Well, it's not like Sun or any of the goons at her father's company could make them. So I did." He flicks the lamp on, squints at his notes. "No skin off my nose, really." He shoves a wad of paper at Nick, "hey does that look like an 'A' or an 'O' to you?"

“...A. So she’s your friend?”

Tony looks up, grinning, “Oh, the best. I thought you would have known that, with all your fancy spy shit. Intelligence gathering, whatever," he blows a raspberry. "The American intelligence system is arbitrary."

Nicks sits back, “The organisation I work for has poured a lot of time and money into finding out how you think, being the future leaders of tomorrow and all. Yet, I sit here, and I don't know what the damn hell is going though your mind.”

"Not many people do," Tony says, and lens over to grab a rubber. "They all think so. Sex, drugs, party, money," he lists, slashing through the air with his pencil with each word. "No. Sure, all that's fun. But it's _tiring,_ and oh god, so boring. It's ridiculous. I like thinking, and making, and I spend the majority of my free time designing and eating pizza and hanging out with Rhodey. Now, I know none of this is in the file, so it might blow your mind, I'll try and take it easy next time."

Nick just looks at him. "You know, everyone goes on and on about you. About how you'll overtake your father and how you'll change the world, and I really can't believe it. Not because I don't think so, but because you're such a little shit, I don't think anyone's ever gonna take you seriously."

Tony turns, and grins. "Oh, they won't, but it won't matter. Because I'll be the best, and when you're the best, nobody can say anything you don't want them too."

"Isn't it easier just to be normal?" Fury asks.

Tony laughs. "Such a military man. Normal is completely and totally relative. We are all normal to someone. To ourselves."


	4. Chapter 4

They decide to hit up a gala, just for the nostalgia. It’s maybe fun for the first 20 minutes, then they are introduced to the hellish truth of these things: It’s boring. All the galas are, Tony forgot how mind-numbing they can be.

He sighs, snatching another glass of champagne. Really, anyone other than the women who keep approaching him to exclaim about how he takes after so-and-so and his father's business partners. 

“Jesus Christ,” Sunset groans in a low voice, “why did we do this again?”

Tony takes a long sip of champagne he's not legally allowed to have but drinks anyway, and answers. “Because we’re idiots.”

“We certainly are. Now we’re stuck here, too.”

He gets an idea. Who said he was an idiot, again? “Not necessarily.”

He wolf whistles, loud, and people turn their heads. He waves at Whit enthusiastically, who rolls her eyes, excuses herself, and clicks on her heels over to them.

“What the fuck? We’re in society, Tony.”

He just smiles. “I’m sorry, baby, but c’mon. You know you're bored, too.”

“Okay, but that doesn't make any sense.”

“This way,” and he leads the girls towards a server's corridor. 

He leans over and grabs a full bottle of champagne from a server leaving the corridor, and pushes behind him, walking towards the kitchen.

"Tony," Whitney giggles, hanging onto his arm. 

"Come on, we'll go through the kitchen and into the rest of the house. 

They get the kitchen, and dodge a plate of horderves immediately. It's strangely busy, servers and cooks dancing chaotically. 

"What way to the rest of the house?" he asks loudly, a chef in white points to an unmarked door.

"Thanks," he says, and leads the girls over. 

They step into the quiet and laugh, swigging from the bottle. "Aw, I wish I grabbed another," he says, looking at the bottle.

"Yeah, because this one's just for me!" Sunset laughs, stealing it out of his hand. 

"Not after me," and Whit takes it before Sunset's even had a sip, and she runs, the heels she slipped off dangling from one hand.

"Hey!" and Sunset chases after her. 

Tony runs down the long corridor, the taste of freedom on his tongue along with champagne. His arms are out wide, catching the wind like a parachute, or a bird. 

He wishes he was a bird. How amazing, how free it would be. 

He throws back his head and whoops, letting the sound echo and echo, bounce around the high ceilings that look the same as any house he’s ever been in.

Whitney and Sun are laughing and swigging from the bottle Tony nicked behind him.

He skids past an empty room, the door ajar. Something catches his eye, a grand piano, splendid, glossy lines curving in a conundrum of artistry, begging to be touched, to be played. He does not claim to be a strong man, and right now, he is particularly weak. 

“Oh my god,” he sighs, stepping inside.

Whit and Sun catch up, trying to see what he's looking at.

“What?” Sun asks, “it's a piano?”

Whitney understands, of course she does, “oh, Tony,  _ play _ .”

He moves forward robotically, sitting on the bench. His hands still over the keys, and for one paralysing moment, all is still.

Then, his fingers are on fire, and music is flowing more easily than she ever remembered. Like a match thrown onto a bonfire, in flames, higher and higher until this entire room is on fire, then there is heat crawling through the ballroom where the women still dance and the men still drink, only they do not feel the flames, hear the music, and it is a shame, because this kind of splendor is a rare thing.

Tony closes his eyes, practically lets the piano play him. Whitney laughs, throws out her arms and dances, twirling around and around, head thrown towards the ceiling. Sunset joins her, after a moment, and they starts up some combo of a walz

“Tony?” A weak voice comes from the door. Whitney stops in her spinning and laughing, and Tony’s hands die off their rapid crescendo.

His mother is standing in the doorway, clutching the glass stem of a champagne flute.

“Mama?” he gapes.

“You still play?” she asks, stepping forward. Her dress rustles, a ruby red color, like wine.

He swallows, “of course.”

“How long has it been, Anthony?” 

He blinks, “a few months, at least. Since the term started.”

“Huh,” she says, and then her gaze turns to Whitney. “Whitney Frost. I hear you've been… networking.”

She hesitates, cheeks flushed from dancing, drinking and laughing. Her dark hair is mussed and her magnificent outfit now looks...small. Like a child caught playing in their mother’s wardrobe. “Yes, I suppose,” she says politely. She’s never met Maria before this, even dating her son.

“Don't,” Maria whispers, face pale, lips red, hair dark, she looks just like a deranged version of Snow White. “Get out, girl.. I was like you. I was like you and now, now—” 

“Mama,” Tony says urgently, getting up. He catches her arm and she jolts, flying down to Earth. “Let's get you to the party, huh?” He steers her from the room, plucking the glass out of her hand, leaving Hope and Whitney to bask in the trail of a ghost.

They walked down the hallway, past the white walls and wooden floors where they had run, shrieking, happy just minutes before. 

“You would have been a brilliant composer,” she tells him, dark eyes sorrowful. Tony closes his eyes and hands her the glass again, still full with sparkling liquid.


	5. Chapter 5

Ty rings him and asks if he wants to go on a mini-road trip. He needs to get out, he says over the phone. He needs to escape. 

Tony says yes, because Tony can only ever say yes to Ty. 

Ty picks him up in a car thats not lavish but not for a couple grand at a used-car impound lot. They leave late in the afternoon, and by dusk they’re somewhere in the great state of California. its beautiful, it is. Wide blue skies stretching over the desert, it could go on forever and ever. _Oh_ , the desert. Tony has been to Saudi Arabia and military bases all around the world but California is different. Rocky, red. This is where cowboys lived and shot each other and starred in western films. 

Ty isn’t really following any map; and Tony can’t be bothered looking at any signs. It's testament to the youth movement in America, he thinks, looking out the window. They don't car where they're going, they just want to be gone and had a fun time before they left. 

  
  


They finally stop at a shady-looking motel with an ice machine and a potted plant outside the lobby. Neither of them has any idea where they are. 

They get a room with one bed and lie on the duvet while reading the minibar. There are smoke stains on the walls from cigarettes and it looks like the set from a cheesy 80s porn movie, but Tony loves it more than his expensive houses. It’s uniquely American, the corruption behind the paint and a cheery sign. 

Tony’s in a strange mood, a reckless mood. 

“I’m broken, Ty,” he tells him in a surreal whisper, “I'm broken and there's no one to fix me.”

“We are here,” Ty says slowly.

“Who?”

“The council. All of us.”

Tony seems to consider that for a moment, and his eyes slide over to Ty’s face for a second, and then they are drawn back into the abyss he must be seeing. 

“What happened?” Ty asks. Something has. Tony isn't like this normally. He’s been thrown off, and nothing throws Tony off. 

  
  


“Father’s coming soon.” he grimaces, and continues, “I've fallen behind on the weapons, and they aren't up to usual standard. but I don’t care. Not anymore. I'm uninspired,” he says dramatically, half-heartedly trying to make a joke. "I've got the morbs." Tony likes referencing obscure things. It makes people think he's pretentious. He guesses he is. 

“You shouldn't be inspired by death,” Ty says gently, cautiously. Truth is, he does not know what Tony should and should not be inspired by.

“I shouldn't be a lot of things,” is all Tony says, eyes half-lidded.

There's silence for a long while, Tony's  tracing the lines on this palms, his knuckles, up and down his fingers. Ty's just looking at him. At this boy, with his hair and lips and skin, all so divine, all so perfect.    


“For what?” Ty asks, “your father?”

“The future. I mean, I've been thinking about it for so long, but…”

“You don’t know what’s coming,” Ty fills in for him.

“No," and Tony laughs, and rocks back and forward like a child, or someone in a mental institution, "the problem is I do.”

Tony looks past him, past the crappy hotel room at the corner of far-flung California they’re inhabiting and Ty understands what it must have been like to see great men think, Leonardo Da Vinci, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, men who gaze into their minds and see the great, glittering, wondrous expanse of space in front of them, all that can be achieved, all of the universe, laid out at their feet like an altar.

  
  


Tony is one of those men, he knows, Tony is one of those men and he will set the world on fire.

Ty wonders if he will burn it down. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Lets go out,” Ty proposes next meeting. “We never do anything exciting.”

Tony smiles, feeling that excitement build in his belly. “That sounds good.”

“Gah. I hate clubs, though,” Sunset opposes. “It’s just loud music and pricey drinks.”

“Sun, we’re rich,” Lex tells her seriously. 

\--

They pull up to a building pounding base 20 minutes later. 

Flashing Ty instead of IDs makes their entrance pretty easy, and soon they’re leaning against the bar, drinks appearing into the girls' hands. They're some fruity things, so sweet they mask the high ( _ highh _ ) alcohol content. 

It’s too loud to really talk, and while the girls chat and Lex shoots emails off with his phone, Ty and Tony dance. 

  
  


Ty jumps up and down, dancing to the music that is no longer words, syllables, but is now just a raging beat, just the same way that their world is no longer the world. It is just Tony and Ty, the party music, jostling bodies, and the lights flashing around them.

Ty is shining, this is more than his element, it is his very realm, as said before: a king in his kingdom. His hair, so very blonde, is dyed different colors every few seconds by the rainbow lights, and Tony cannot help but watch how he jumps in tune with the beat ricocheting through their bones, how he seems just one more bass note from touching the stars.

Ty’s mouth opens, and he shouts the lyrics that he can somehow hear, Tony blinks, Tony world is back; if only for a few fleeting moments.

Ty turns, smiling at some girl with too-much perfume and a lipsticked mouth.

Tony swallows, a heavy feeling in his belly. He walks back to the others, who greet him drunkenly.

Whit ropes an arm over his shoulder, pecking a kiss to his cheek all while grinning happily. She and Sunset (who is sucking down her Long Island Tea like air and making eyes at the bartender) don't seem to be okay with the club scene at all. Sure.

Tony laughs when everyone else does, inserts a copy-and-paste joke when needed. But his mind never drifts from the still-missing Ty and the perfume-lipstick girl, still not to be spotted.

They leave around three, Ty isn’t back, but Tony knows he shouldn’t worry, Ty can take care of himself. The bartender calls them a taxi after pressing his number into Sunset’s hand, Tony is squashed into the backseat, yelling the address to Sun’s hotel.

He drops the others off, leaving the staff to deal with them, and tells the driver to keep going towards what he supposes is his house. He gets off at the start of the long drive, because he wants to walk. 

It’s a little cold out, and there’s crickets and moonlight and Tony think about all that. He thinks about nothing, or, he’s trying to think about othing. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He stops, and he lays down on the gravel, and looks at the sky, spotted with faint stars. He reaches a hand up, and imagines plucking it from the sky. He wishes he’s able to see all of the stars that are really up there, that California’s light pollution would vanish for a minute, just a minute, and he could see what they see in the desert or the mountains, or something. 

He sighs, and gets up, trudging towards the house. It’s a grand house. He was told the history of it once, but he doesn’t really remember. It’s got a good view, though. Howard bought it for them to live in when he was born, but it's not like he's every stayed here for any period of time. 

He passes the fountain and the roses, look at one of dad’s cars parked out front. Is he home? There’s no light on inside the windows. 

He walks down, past the entrance and into the gardens. He turns the corner and fishes a key under a large ceremonial pot. 

He’s not meant to hide keys, but he lost his 3 years ago.

He lets himself inside, calls out to the foyer. 

“Hello?” anyone here?”

His voice bounces back at him, echoing. 

He waits, a few long moments. Nothing. What was he expecting? His dad’s in New York or Boston or Washington and his mother's probably in the alps for the summer. Or Greece, or Bali, or anywhere in the world that isn't here. 

He’s tired, suddenly. He needs to sleep, because his eyes are burning. 

He makes it to his room, flops down on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He likes Whitney. He can say that he doesn't love her, he doesn't want to marry her. Tonight, when Ty had been dancing, he had looked...like an angel — albeit fallen, but still an angel — alive and holy in his brilliance, a thousand-watt light bulb.

If he closes his eyes he can pretend to live in that moment forever, bass pounding, bodies moving, a strange type of heaven on earth.

He opens his eyes, ripping himself out of the dream. Whitney. He is dating Whitney. One day he might love Whitney. One day he might marry Whitney.

Whitney.

Whitney.

Whitney.

Whit,

Whit whit whit whit whit whit whit

Whit. 

He likes Whitney.

He closes his eyes again and tries to believe it’s true.


End file.
